PA Rep. Daryl Metcalfe: People are “Too Lazy” to get the “ID They Need”

Pennsylvania Representative Daryl Metcalfe (R), sponsor of PA’s voter ID law, says a lot of people are “too lazy to get up and get out there and get the ID they need.” Just as they [Republicans] have no proof of widespread voter fraud, they also have no proof that “a lot of people” are lazy. It’s simply an invented narrative, and it is pervasive on the Right.

I don’t believe any legitimate voter that actually wants to exercise that right and takes on the according responsiblity that goes with that right to secure their photo ID will be disenfranchised. As Mitt Romney said, 47% of the people that are living off the public dole, living off their neighbors’ hard work, and we have a lot of people out there that are too lazy to get up and get out there and get the ID they need. If individuals are too lazy, the state can’t fix that. – PA Rep. Daryl Metcalfe (R)

This kind of attitude is really frustrating, and I don’t know what it’s going to take to weed out this disdain for fellow Americans. But I think this is a clear illustration of the difference between many (but not all) conservatives and many (but not all) liberals.

Liberals are not “out to get” someone. Liberals are not trying to demonize or defeat other human beings. Liberals stand for civil liberties and personal freedom, and we understand that being poor or in poverty creates a class of people who are less free than others.

Because many small government conservatives have a different philosophy on how to combat poverty, that doesn’t mean I hate or harbor contempt for them, I just disagree with their ideas. But it seems many conservatives have true contempt for the poor, and that makes it very difficult to believe they would ever offer a good faith effort to combat poverty.

Conservatives might turn this around and say that liberals have disdain for the rich, but that simply isn’t true. I mean, I can’t speak for every single liberal, but I think most liberals just want rich people to acknowledge that there is a lot of luck involved (regardless of how hard they worked) and that they didn’t build everything they have on their own. If they own a business, it took the workers and the customers to make that business successful. Many of those workers and customers might be in the 47% that Mitt Romney and Daryl Metcalfe show such contempt for.

So to come back to Mr. Metcalfe’s statement, I want to know how it is that he is convinced that 47% of Americans are lazy and “living off their neighbor’s hard work.” I want him to explain why he thinks there should be any test or qualification to exercise the right to vote other than citizenship and voter registration. Finally, I’m tired of elected officials trying to legislate solutions to problems that don’t exist instead of fixing real problems, and we have plenty of them. Mr. Metcalfe, stop wasting our time and our money.